Quantum Physics and its Vedic influence -Erwin Schrodinger II

In August 1918 he wrote ‘The stages of human development are to strive for:
1) Besitz,
2) Wissen,
3) Können and
4) Sein.
That is; Possession, knowledge, ability and being. It is obvious to an Indian mind that this is nothing other than the quadruplet Dharma, Ardha, Kama and Moksha of Upanishadic vision. Schrodinger wrote that he was under the very strong influence of Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904) who immersed himself in eastern Buddhist culture. Schrodinger was fascinated by the following passages from Hearn’s essays (The Diamond Cutter) “The ego is only an aggregate of countless illusions, a phantom shell, a bubble sure to break. It is Karma that prevails. Acts and thoughts are the forces integrating themselves into material and mental phenomena – into what we call objective and subjective appearances. The universe is the integration of acts and thoughts. Even swords and things of metal are manifestations of spirit. There is no birth and death but the birth and death of Karma in some form or other form or condition. There is on reality but there is no permanent individual.

Phantom succeeds to phantom, as undulations to undulations over the ghostly sea of birth and death: And even as the storming of sea is a motion of undulations not of translations, even as it is the form of the wave only, not the wave itself that travels – so with passing of lives there is only rising and vanishing of forms – forms mental, forms material. The fathomless reality does not pass. Within every creature incarnate sleeps the infinite intelligence unevolved, hidden, unfelt, unknown. Yet destined from all eternities to waken at last, to rend away the ghostly web if sensuous mind, to break for even its chrysalis of flesh and pass to the extreme conquest of space and time”.

It is evident that these thoughts recurred to Erwin Schrodinger when he devised his wave equation leading to discovery of wave mechanics. He found the reality of physics in wave motions and he also based this reality on an underlying unity of mind. Schrodinger was well versed in the techniques of Srimad Bhagavad Gita and he knew that he was a “Jnanayogi.”. His intellect showed him the way, and throughout his life he expressed in graceful essays his belief in Vedanta but he remained what the Indians called a Mahavit, a person who knows that theory but has failed to achieve a practical realization of it in his own life. He knew from Chandogya Upanishad “I am Mahavit, a knower of the world and not an Atmavit, a knower of the atman”

n autumn of 1925 Schrodinger wrote an interestingly personal account of his philosophy of life (Mein Welten sicht – My World View). He completed this only in 1960 and in chapter 5 of this book he gives the basic view of Vedanta. He writes “Vedanta teaches that consciousness is singular, all happenings are played out in one universal consciousness and there is no multiplicity of selves. He fully acknowledges Sankara’s view that Brahman is associated with a certain power called Maya to which is -due the appearance of the entire world. Maya is neither being nor not being but a principle of illusion. Brahman through Maya projects the appearance of the world. Thus Maya is the material cause of this world. In all the apparently individual form of existence the individual Brahman is present. Schrodinger did not believe that it will be possible to demonstrate the unity of consciousness by logical arguments. One must make imaginative leap guided by communion with nature and the persuasion of analogies. He learned the commentaries of Sankara on the Sutra’s from the “Sacred Book of the East” edited by Max Muller.

Erwin Schrodinger is a prominent example showing how eastern philosophy can profoundly influence western thought in the field of fundamental science. While scientists like Schrodinger did not possess a direct knowledge of Sanskrit to discern first hand both the letter and spirit of Upanishads, there are persons like Robert Oppenheimer who were not lacking in such an advantage. The fact is that irrespective of east or west, the great minds everywhere have perceived that the ultimate reality remains timeless and changeless